Wilson senior team heading to Ohio for football American style
Aug 28, 2008 - 02:32 PM
By Brian McNair
WHITBY -- Your eyes were not deceiving you if you saw the Wilson Gators football team practising a week before school was set to begin.
You might be wrong in assuming the kids simply can't wait to get back to the school, however.
Rather, the senior team has been going through twice-a-day drills this week for a good reason: to prepare for what head coach Adam Papadakos expects to be the trip of a lifetime.
On Thursday, two days after school resumes, the Gators will head to Ohio for a visit to the Pro Football Hall of Fame and play an exhibition game against North Canton's Hoover High School on Friday.
"We always thought it would be a great dream to play a true Friday Night Lights experience," Papadakos explained. "As we all know, the Americans take high school football quite seriously. Many times, it looks like college football."
In fact, Papadakos said the game will count toward the American school's computer ranking. And, considering Hoover's a Division 1 school that went deep into the Ohio state playoffs last year, Papadakos knows his team will have its hands full.
"We'll be playing all American rules, so it's going to be quite an adjustment for our kids," he said, adding that Hoover will be in its third week of the schedule. "We're going to try our best. It's going to be a difficult task because we're so young in our season, but we're here this week to prepare for it and we're quite excited about it. We're going to give it our best shot."
Papadakos has been in touch with contacts south of the border trying to arrange a trip of this nature for two years.
When Hoover, which plays only two out-of-conference games each season, extended an invitation, he jumped at the opportunity, no matter how early into the school year it is here.
"It was their only open date in three years, so it was take it or leave it," he said. "We're going to the hotbed of high school football down in Ohio, without a doubt, so we decided we'd take it."
Papadakos has done a tremendous job with the football program since the Whitby school opened. Last season, in just their third year running a senior team, the Gators won the LOSSA championship, reached the Metro Bowl semifinals, and sent four players on to post-secondary playing opportunities.
It's for these reasons that he works so hard at it, and that the players reciprocate in kind.
"It's very rewarding," he said. "We're really proud of our kids. They put in a tremendous amount of dedication and time into this program."
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